everything leaves tracks (a story told backwards)
by black-ostias
Summary: in which lori is a boy, rick is a girl, and important things change but still stay the same. rick/daryl. visual reference: pistengyawa. tumblr. com/post/79599018314/seetheauthorwrite-check-me-out-flailing-my-way / COMPLETE.


**this was partially experimental, mostly my feels about rick and how much more heartbreaking things would've been if he were a woman. and also my feels about daryl and unrequited love.**

**i might have screwed a bit with the timeline to make rick give birth so soon after the attack on the prison but whatevs. it's irrelevant!...right?**

**listen to the fray's cover of _kiss me_ for maximum depressing effect.**

* * *

**Daryl's POV**

This is how it starts.

Rick's hands are soft on your face, not because they're smooth and unfamiliar to hard labor, but because she's holding you like you're made of stardust and daydreams, like you'll break at any moment, and maybe you already are. Maybe this time you won't be able to piece yourself back together again.

"What're you doin," you hear yourself saying, a little too brusquely, and she flinches, draws her hands back into her lap, toying with the hem of her shirt. "I'm sorry," she whispers, stricken, and your mouth has gone dry, heat licking the base of your spine.

She goes to stand and leave the cell, but you snag her by the wrist, and her head jerks up, searching your face intently. You swallow hard. "You gotta be," and your voice fails you for a second. "Yer sure."

Wide-eyed look from Rick, and then, slowly: "This is the mother lode of all bad ideas." This lovely crooked half-smile blooms on her face. "Now c'mere."

A breath later finds her lips on yours, slick tongues moving together and she makes a low needful sound, cups the back of your head to angle you right, clambering back onto the bunk with her knees snug around your hips. You remember your arms, and you wind them around her slim waist, curse at how fumbling and awkward you are.

"I'm not gonna break, Daryl," she murmurs, and you want to laugh at her surety, her too bright eyes.

"Ain't your body I'm worried about," you tell her, and the smile splinters a little, dark curls spilling over her shoulders as she inhales shakily, then picks it up and puts it aside just like you have your whole life. It feels like you've got a sparrow's heart in your ribcage now.

Then her hands are back on your face and she pulls you in for another kiss, and another, fiercer and fiercer and by the time she's rolled you on top of her you don't fight it.

You're through fighting this.

* * *

No. This is how it starts.

"You're part of that family," Rick says, angling her chin, trying to indicate her conviction to have you stay, but it's not enough. Your brain whirs madly, turning pages upon pages of scenarios where everyone wins and coming up blank.

"Don't ask me to leave him. I already did that once."

She blinks at you and for a second the faith melts off her face and she looks older than she has the right to be, absolutely finished. Her red-rimmed eyes are haunted, just killing you, those fucking eyes. She nods shortly, sighs. "Take care of yourself."

It's an odd sentiment, mournful and companionable at the same time, trading sad smiles like secrets. Your chest feels like it's full of rocks. "Take care o' Lil Asskicker an' Carl."

Each step you take away from them (from _her_) is spent convincing yourself that you're doing the right thing.

Each step back is an unbearable lightness growing in you until you see the prison gates again and you fly clear away.

* * *

Or maybe it's –

Rick's shut down.

Laurence Grimes is axed to the back of his neck before Oscar guns Andrew down, but you don't tell his wife that. You don't need to. And you remain motionless as she sinks to the ground, Carl the only thing holding her up. At first she does nothing but weep, saying _no_ over and over and it wracks you like bullets. But then the sobs peter away and a terrible blankness overtakes her eyes that make Carl ask "Mom?" all panicked and you muzzy and faltering with fear.

You dare to rest a hand on her cheek, searching her face. "Rick, Rick, are you with me?"

She lets out a choked gasp of pain, clutching at her stomach, and some hours later she delivers a baby girl she refuses to touch or even look at.

"You can't blame her," Maggie says out of the blue, when you're tying the dead possum to your belt. She's giving you a particularly searching look under which you try not to fidget. She continues, "You shouldn't blame her, because she's just lost Laurie. And. Shane's –"

You grit your teeth hard enough that your jaws ache, but it's only on reflex. "I ain't blamin nobody," you cut her off, not wanting to think about it, not tonight. You just need to get out of here, get this formula to Rick's baby, simple basic things that'll make you happy as a fucking clam.

Maggie's expression changes, the hard lines crumpling as she shakes her head ever so slightly, and it takes you a while to recognize it as affection. "You should tell her, you know."

"You should mind y'damn business, woman," you snap, but not angrily enough, it seems, because she just lifts one shoulder in surrender and goes back to clearing out the shelves.

The fact that the baby settles in your arms almost instantly has this flickering thing happening deep inside you, and nearly everyone sags in relief when she starts feeding, contented little noises issuing from her tiny body.

"Mom told me once that Grandpa named her Rick with an 'i' because he wanted a boy." Carl's staring at the baby with a strange, dark look that has you worrying a bit, and not just because the kid's mad he doesn't have a brother instead.

"D'you name yer sister yet?"

Carl says tonelessly, "She's not my sister."

You're taken aback for a moment, wanting to cuff him upside the head bad enough that it frightens you. You settle for fixing him with a stern glare. "She's yer ma's. That makes her yours too."

He looks annoyed at first, then vaguely guilt-stricken, shifting on the balls of his feet. "Maybe. Maybe Sophia? Or Carol?" he asks, and you think about the small yellow paper hand tacked to the wall of the daycare center, about a kind understanding voice.

Lil Asskicker just sounds way cooler, though.

When Rick's tucked her ghosts behind a shut door because Glenn and Maggie need rescuing, she thanks you for what you'd done, smiling. And when she smiles like that, peace smoothing her face over and softening the dark patches under her eyes, you turn the other way, your throat full and aching to ask things you don't even know.

* * *

Or maybe it happens like this.

She has one arm hovering in the air to keep herself balanced, the other curled around a plate of food as she walks towards you. In a flash you hop down from the overturned bus, steady her by her pocketknife elbow. You can close your whole hand around it if you try hard enough, and it sickens you.

"What the hell were you thinkin, comin all this way here, an' without a flashlight too." You try aiming for stern but venture a little too far into worried, and Rick smiles, leans against the cold metal.

"If I didn't, you wouldn't eat at all. Besides, I needed the exercise. My butt hurts something awful from sitting around." Instinctively she cradles the swell of her belly, near-comical in proportion to the rest of her small frame. You watch her fingers mold to the place where the baby's head would be, and grab the plate from her so you can have something to do other than feel like this.

She continues, "There's no breach in the defenses we've seen so far. But it'd be best if we clear out the buildings tomorrow. One last lap before we're scot free." She looks straight at you, steady as hell, and you remember your road trip with Merle to Florida once, the Gulf of Mexico flinging blue in every direction. "You up for it?"

You scarf down the meager plateful, looking out to the merry bonfire in the middle of the open space, to where Rick's husband and kid are. A kid who always came running to you all winter, and a husband who treats her like she's already dead. "Can't wait," is what you say.

"I'd follow you straight into hell," is what you don't say.

* * *

But perhaps it starts here.

It's nearing dusk and you've half a mind to jump on your bike and go after them when the car comes into view, skids to a haphazard stop down the beaten dirt path. Rick clambers out, wobbling on her own two feet, and Carl barrels past you to hug her, crying, he won't stop crying.

Rick lets her son bury his face in her ruined shirt, and she's trembling like a leaf in a gale but she stands firm. "I'm okay," she breathes over and over, as Maggie rushes to wrap a blanket around her waist. Her pants and underwear are gone, blood caking the insides of her thighs, her hands and knees scraped to ribbons. Your rage is indescribable, a white star searing your vision.

"What the hell happened?" Laurie demands, striding towards her. You don't miss the way she shies from his touch, and you inch yourself between them, sling her arm around your neck. She leans into you readily, T-Dog taking her other arm, and you get this sense of déjà vu, of when Andrea's accidental trigger-happiness took you down, of Rick bearing your weight all the way back to the farmhouse.

"Ricki, what happened, where's Sha —"

"You really gotta ask now?" you snarl, hackles rising, because his wife's tattered at the edges and he's asking after his psychotic boyfriend instead. Thankfully the asshole keeps his mouth shut; that is, until Hershel's finished treating Rick's injuries.

"Ricki, where's Shane?"

Her eyes should be cold and dead when she turns them on Laurie but she's just the same; her voice worn away to nothing but loud and clear enough to announce to everyone gathered by her bedside:

"He raped me. I did what I had to do."

Your hand clenches on your crossbow, knuckles going pale and the plastic cutting across your lifeline. It doesn't take Einstein to piece together what happened: Shane jumps her from behind, pins her on her belly to the ground, shows her who's boss by taking her like he used to take it from Laurie, and you truly regret that he's dead already. Judging by the outraged sounds the others are making, they do too.

Laurie's shaking his head, baldly stricken and infuriated for a completely different reason. "And Randall?"

"My screams got the attention of walkers in an abandoned building," Rick says, all savage eyes and thin-lipped mouth. "He got bit, I had to get out of there. But there's something else you need to know. We're all infected."

Because Jenner had told her that theory way back at the CDC but she didn't want to believe it at first. Because there was no solid proof that this was even true. Whatever her reason was for keeping it a secret doesn't matter, since Shane only took a knife to the chest but staggered back up again to join the horde feasting on Randall's prone corpse. But.

"No. No, Shane was a good man, I, I don't believe you," Laurie stutters, righteously angry, staggering like he's been shot.

And before you know it, you've dragged him outside of the room, tossed him down to the damp lawn and socked him in the face. He goes sprawling back against the grass, lower lip split in two and wheezing through pain. You're not even mortified at how badly you want to hit him and never stop. T-Dog and Glenn strong-arm you away from him, and ugly roars rip out of you, fuckin faggot motherfucker you don't deserve to live you piece a shit.

Carl stands behind the screen door with Dale curled protectively around him. He stares at his father for a few moments, then turns heel to go back to Rick.

Nobody offers to help Laurie up.

"Did you know?" Rick asks you, two nights later. You're standing on the porch, looking out into the long bright dark. She's holding herself a bit stiffly, but she insisted she get her bearings back. "Did you know about Shane killing Otis?"

You chew a bit on the inside of your cheek before answering. "Told some story, how Otis covered him, saved his ass, then showed up with the dead guy's gun."

She sighs. "If I'd been half as smart as you are…" She shakes her head, clearing the cobwebs of ill-begotten guilt. "Anyway, I wanted to thank you for overseeing the move into the farmhouse. Wouldn't have been able to do it without you."

A foreign sensation crawls up your neck, and you swallow hard, glad she won't be able to see you blush under the dim light. "Was yer plans, not mine."

She huffs a laugh. "People don't take too kindly to being bossed around by a woman," she says, plain hard truth. "But I'm glad you don't have the same disposition."

"Ain't no reason y'should do all the heavy liftin," you mutter, and you sneak a glance at the mess of her hair falling thick around her face, her amused eyes.

And then you hear the distant, gurgling moans.

The herd razes the farm to the ground, Jimmy and Patricia, Dale and Andrea with it. None of you can sleep because it's so damn cold.

Rick starts throwing up three weeks later, and Laurie's rubbing awkwardly at her back, glaring at you all weighted and baleful.

"We really should try our luck alone," Carol tells you as you try and see what canned foods are salvageable. The house is empty and her voice carries too much. "With a baby on the way, it's gonna pull the group down."

"When did you get this selfish?" you grumble, not bothering to look up. "Y'go on ahead then, send me a postcard."

She doesn't answer, and you think she's dropped the subject until she reaches out, touches the side of your face. You jerk back, widening your eyes at her, but she only smiles, a lace of sadness in her voice as she says, "I'll never hold your heart the way she does," and turns, climbs the staircase to the bedrooms to look for clothes.

You stay still in that kitchen for a long time.

* * *

Because maybe it's been there since the moment you laid eyes on her, metal bar gripped firmly in her hands and her man-sized shirt slipping off one shoulder, black curls escaping her haphazard ponytail. Maybe ever since she didn't hesitate to get your brother back, or rescue Glenn from his kidnappers, or trust you wholeheartedly —

Maybe you never stood a chance.

* * *

Or maybe, just maybe, it truly starts here:

"Daryl," she gasps, wrecked beyond belief and it shouldn't make you groan like it does. "Daryl, oh god, Daryl."

You mouth at her through the worn cotton of her panties, merely sampling her and it's an obvious struggle for her to not buck up into you, there in the unceasing slide of her thighs against your shoulders.

"Y'taste so fuckin —" Rick never does find out from you what she tastes like (hot and wet and salty, the Mexican gulf at dawn), because you're too busy sliding her belt from its loops, too busy biting the juncture of her thigh, and her whole form _twists_, a live wire clothed in skin.

But you still need to hear her say it; hear her tell you that she wants this just as badly as you do, that this _means_ something. "Please let me, I wanna," you murmur, kissing your way back up the slope of her belly, detouring to her peaked nipples before finding her lips again. "Please let me."

She nods furiously, looking desperate and tortured but also like she might burst out laughing. The way she's looking at you makes it nigh impossible to look away. "Please do."

You're given enough leeway to tug her undergarments off completely, and you groan as she pushes you back down, the scratch of her nails against your scalp as tender as it is craving. And the lust simmering in you crashes with overwhelming bliss, because this means something, it does.

It always has.

Rick's just as hard as you are, when you press the flat of your tongue to her soft folds. Her hand tightens in your hair, holds you in place as she arches up from the mattress into your mouth, a whine trickling from her like a dam about to flood over.

Neither of you can keep quiet, you realize. This is something that's built up inside you for years, something she's been holding back, and all the new Woodbury folks could march in here and you'd not let up how you're sucking at her relentlessly, then all gentle and slow, how you're palming yourself through your jeans. Her legs quiver with fine tremors at each stroke of your tongue, clamping around your head and you only grow louder, combating each of her moans with one of your own. You bury yourself in her until there's no more air in your lungs, then gulp a breath to come back for more, until she's rocking frantically into your mouth.

Rick's already come undone, elicited by the push of your tongue along with two fingers inside her, and when she comes this time it's with your name on her lips, a mantra that dwindles into shaky sighs, her entire body going slack.

"You okay?" you rasp out, arms trembling as you drag yourself back up, and she smiles, shaky but honest. "Are _you_?" she counters, freeing your cock from its confines, the smile growing more wicked and twin bolts of fondness and wantwant_want_ lance your already molten core. She strokes you until your toes curl up and you spill against her thigh, collapsing beside her with a groan.

And when you come back to yourself all you see is the fire dancing in her eyes, the joy in her voice as she tells you, "I redact my previous statement. This has been the best idea since you informally christened the baby Lil Asskicker."

You nestle up against Rick, hardly any space between you in this tiny bunk, and you fall so fast, led by her quickening heartbeat and her hands soft on your face.


End file.
